250 Box Challenge

9:19 PM, Monday November 20th 2023

250 Boxes - Album on Imgur

Direct Link: https://i.imgur.com/FPn3dmi.jpg

Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered enterta...

Sorry for the images being in reverse order- i tried my best to fix it

9:01 PM, Wednesday November 22nd 2023

Hi there, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

Not only does the challenge help deepen your understanding of important concepts but it shows your desire to learn as well. That being said I'll try to keep this critique fairly brief so you can get working on the next steps as soon as possible.

Things you did well:

  • Your construction lines are looking smooth and confidently drawn.

  • You're doing a great job of experimenting with orientations, and proportions. Experimenting is an important habit to build when learning any new skill, it helps form a more well rounded understanding. I hope you'll continue to display and nurture this habit in the future.

Things you can work on:

  • When hatching you want to have both ends of the lines touching an edge of the form they're being drawn on rather than being left floating. Usually when left floating like this it's caused by people hesitating while worrying about accuracy. Remember to take your time to space each line with the ghosting method, and then draw them confidently just like any other line, accuracy will improve with more mileage.

  • Line weight isn't a requirement of the challenge but I do recommend practicing it in your future attempts. It's an incredibly useful tool but one that people often require a fair bit of mileage before they feel comfortable applying it. The sooner you start to build up that mileage the sooner you'll see better results.

  • I'd like you to experiment with rates of foreshortening more. Currently you tend to keep your lines close to parallel and push your vanishing points far from your boxes. Try bringing your points in closer so that your lines have to converge more dramatically. Remember that experimentation is important.

  • At times you're placing your vanishing point between the viewer and your boxes (boxes 27, 77 and 179 are examples of this) or you extend in both directions rather than 1 as instructed. This leads to you extending your lines in the wrong direction and your boxes becoming distorted because your lines are actually diverging from where the vanishing point would actually be. Here's a guide I wrote that will hopefully help you place your vanishing points and line extensions more consistently. If you need some more examples you can find them here and a simplified guide below.

  • There are times when your lines converge in pairs or you attempt to keep your lines a bit too parallel which results in them diverging. This is an example of lines converging in pairs, and this shows the relation between each line in a set and their respective vanishing point. The inner pair of lines will be quite similar unless the box gets quite long and the outer pair can vary a lot depending on the location of the vanishing point. Move it further away and the lines become closer to parallel while moving it closer increases the rate of foreshortening.

The key things we want to remember from this exercise are that our lines should always converge as a set not in pairs, never diverge from the vanishing point and due to perspective they won't be completely parallel.

I won't be moving you on to the next lesson just yet, each lesson builds off concepts in the previous course material so if you move forward with un-addressed issues you end up just creating further issues on top of them.

I'd like you to draw 30 more boxes please. Focus on extending your lines consistently in the correct direction as well as experimenting with rates of foreshortening. For the first 15 I'd like you to draw your boxes' vanishing points explicitly on the page after you've drawn your starting Y, this will make it so you have to keep these vanishing points in mind. For the latter 15 go back to the challenge's method without drawing the vanishing points which will hopefully be easier after the first set.

Once you've completed your boxes reply to this critique with a link to them, I'll address anything that needs to be worked on and once you've shown you're ready I'll move you on to the next lesson.

I know you can do this and look forward to seeing your work.

Next Steps:

30 more boxes please.

When finished, reply to this critique with your revisions.
10:43 PM, Friday November 24th 2023

Thanks for the critique! I've completed 30 more boxes as requested: https://imgur.com/a/mDJmlSL

I attempted to adress all the problems mentioned, but I find myself struggling a bit with the back corner (the usually nonvisible one) and therefore my lines converging in pairs.

3:50 PM, Saturday November 25th 2023

Few things to go over quickly:

  • You have some noticeable line wobbling occurring, mostly in your early boxes and in your line weight. Remember that every line should be planned using the ghosting method and then drawn confidently, your accuracy will improve as you build up with mileage so don't stress about it too much (this refers to line weight as well).

  • You don't extend all 3 sets of lines in each box, this leaves some of your boxes technically incomplete. In the future please follow all of the instructions rather than skipping over them.

  • The lines you do extend are all in the correct direction which is good to see.

  • You've also done a good job of experimenting with rates of foreshortening more here.

  • Don't stress yourself about the rear corner too much, as mentioned in the instructions of the challenge it'll often be incorrect. The goal of the challenge isn't to create perfect boxes (we have rulers, and digital tools to help with that), it's to deepen your understanding of 3D space. Any inaccuracies you've made will be reflected in the rear corner since we tend to draw it last. Be mindful of how you can try your best to improve it but don't expect perfection when freehanding.

I'm hopeful with the incomplete boxes and wobbly lines pointed out you can address them in your own time. If it's an issue later on you may be asked for more revisions.

I'll be marking your submission complete.

Keep practicing boxes and previous exercises as warmups and best of luck in lesson 2.

Next Steps:

Move on to lesson 2.

This critique marks this lesson as complete.
6:06 PM, Saturday November 25th 2023

Thank you so much! Have a wonderful day!

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